‘Casting Lear’ or how not to kill the father (just forgive him)

The playwright Andrea Jiménez premiered the work a few weeks ago Casting Lear at the La Abadía theater. The proposal consists of a dialogue between Cordelia, prolonged in the experiences of the actress and director herself, and King Lear, played by a different actor in each performance who does not know the text he is going to interpret (it will be dictated to him through a penguin). Shortly after learning of his proposal, I suggested to one of the great actors of this country, perhaps the best Lear we have ever known, that he go see it. He said no. He explained to me that Shakespeare has nothing to do with Andrea Jiménez’s life. Days later a review appeared in this newspaper that described the play as “little more than a theatrical experiment.” And, almost at the same time, another newspaper published a report claiming that the market rewards female creators when they claim their traumas because it is fashionable. However, the function I attended contradicts the three previous testimonies.

To the prestigious actor who explained to me (without seeing the play) that Andrea Jiménez had no right to name Shakespeare in vain, I would like to say that the most innovative thing here is that Jiménez does not go to Lear to condemn his father —Shakespeare was very harsh in this sense—but to understand it. The headmistress, as her daughter, needs to forgive her father who one day, like Lear did to Cordelia, disowned her. She doesn’t need to kill him: she needs to forgive him. And for that it is necessary that they speak. And speaking, from a distance from cultural misunderstandings and those they demand, is complicated.

For the dialogue to occur, Andrea Jiménez has created a theatrical device: a new Lear every night. An actor older than her, so much so that he could be her father, who decides to put himself in the hands of the director to “dare to look at her own fragility,” as she herself demands. It is not, as was said, “a theatrical experiment”: it is a dangerous experience, a risk for hearts wounded by the depth of their mutual incomprehension due to a power severely exercised and without mercy. Her father’s. And also due to a long-fermented resentment, that of those disinherited from love. It is theatre, no doubt, but theater in the flesh. Swords and words really hurt, they are not props. Andrea Jiménez risks dying in each performance and the actor on duty may not come out much better off.

The director and actress Andrea Jiménez chooses a different man for each performance and each time she tries to forgive and come out safely from the encounter with a guy (Lear) who has already killed love, her own and that of her daughter. A love that she wants to save, that she aspires to save in order to save herself from her resentment. There comes a time when the actors (brave in accepting the challenge and generous on stage; special mention for Alberto San Juan, among those I saw) will have to create their own text, answer questions on their behalf and get involved in the Cordelia’s pain, that is, Andrea’s. The trauma of a woman who, according to some sectors of the cultural industry, is part of a market trend and consequently is not an authentic voice and does not represent anyone. The fact is that, beyond business trajectories, she represents all of us and all of our fears. Long live the king and long live Cordelia.

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